SHEBOYGAN - On a small family farm on the outer edge of Manitowoc County, Nancy Kellner tends to her flock, crating the dozens of organically raised eggs that, in just days, will be served in fine cuisine in Sheboygan area restaurants.

Kellner, who operates Kellner Back Acre Garden, has found a niche in supplying eggs to area restaurants, grocery stores, farmer's markets and even one particularly popular football team -- and distributes more than 4,000 eggs a week.

“We aren’t making a huge profit on the eggs, but we want people to eat organic and we want people to eat local,” she said. “I want to see people eat healthier."

Two recipients of the eggs are Stefano Viglietti, who operates the restaurants Field to Fork, Trattoria Stefano, and Il Ritrovo; and Brian Bernier, who operates Harvest Cafe — all of which are located on the same block in downtown Sheboygan.

The two restaurateurs are bringing patrons on a culinary adventure of locally sourced cuisine for a truly "farm to table" experience that extends far beyond just eggs to meats, greens, and bread -- but each has a different focus for why sourcing local is so important.

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Lakeland University's Tiffany Fischer works on bagging lettuce at Lake Orchard aquaponics Thursday June 29, 2017 in the Town of Mosel.(Photo: Gary C. Klein/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

“Taste. Purely taste,” Viglietti said. “It doesn’t travel nearly as far. If you’re talking about a vegetable: What’s it grown in? If you stand by two fields, one organic, one not, the soil on the organic side will be lively, black, moist, and full of worms and bugs. The (non-organic field) is going to be dead and only activated by fertilizers. It produces a tasteless, bland product.”

For Viglietti, the search for simple ingredients with explosive, fresh flavors is what motivated his switch from traditional supply chains to locally-sourced farms and producers. Now, he brings ingredients from dozens of local farmers; everything from leafy greens to pork, mushrooms and rabbit are all purchased locally.

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Tilapia peer at the photographer in a fish tank at Lake Orchard aquaponics Thursday June 29, 2017 in the Town of Mosel.(Photo: Gary C. Klein/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

“We try to do things at a foundational level, but in a relatively quiet way. We come to it through the pallet and the mouth, not through preaching,” Stefano said. “It comes through the flavor.”

Why it tastes better, he said, is simple: what the animals are fed or how the produce is grown is reflected in the final product. There's a reason mass-farmed pork does not taste the same as field-grazed pig.

"You want to know what’s wrong? You’re eating disease, urine, methane and filth,’” Viglietti said. “In a nutshell (...) it tastes that way because of how its raised, what it eats, and its daily life.”

Bernier, too, noticed the quality of taste increase as he switched to organic foods, but much of his reasoning for the focus on fresh has to do with health.

Lisa and Brian Bernier opened a new restaurant, Harvest Cafe, at the corner of 8th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Sheboygan. The restaurant focuses on locally-sourced, organic food.(Photo: Photo courtesy Lisa Bernier)

“The food system today has gotten to be that bad food, which has been sprayed with lots of chemicals — I call it tainted food —is available and cheap. Good food is easily available, but people don’t always know it,” Bernier said. “I’ve had too many friends and family members die of Alzheimer’s, cancers and other things. We found roundup in almost everything we eat conventionally. If you look, about ten companies control the whole food chain, and that’s scary.”

Both source from Wisconsin- and Illinois- based farms and suppliers, which can be more work and is more expensive, but is a worthy return on investment for supporting healthy food.

It can be a full time job determining what farms have what products, and tailoring menus to the constant variance in what's available. Both restaurateurs not only eat the food, but have formed bonds with the farmers tilling the land and raising the food.

“It feels good," Bernier said. "You go out and meet their families, and the whole family has their life on the line to produce good food."

Both use some of the same sources, such as Kellner Back Acre Garden and Springdale Farm, one of the largest CSA farms in the state with 16 greenhouses. Some suppliers, though, they keep close to the chest. Small farms have limited supplies, and Viglietti is tight lipped about some of his smaller, lesser known suppliers.

Perhaps one of the most unique suppliers in the area is Lake Orchard Farm Aquaponics. On the shores of Lake Michigan just north of Whistling Straits, the 150-year-old family farm has a large aquaponics facility that supplies fish, greens and other produce to restaurants and grocery stores year-round.

For the owners, the switch to aquaponics several years ago was driven by their own desire to eat healthier.

“If I could explain it in one word it would be ‘health.' People are more and more concerned with ‘why are these things happening?’ Diabetes rates. Cancer rates. People don’t know why these things are going up, and doctors don’t know exactly why, so it’s becoming a responsibility to eat better,” Nate Calkins, who co-owns the facility with his wife, Mary, said. “Outside of the sustainability of the system, the drive for us was to get our own healthy food whenever we wanted. That was probably the biggest motivation of ‘why this versus something else.’”

Calkins supplies to several restaurants in the area, including the Kohler-owned properties, and to Woodlake Market in Kohler, which quietly has become a grocery known for locally-sourced, organic produce.

“There is a pride in it, too,” Calkins said. “Restauranteurs put us on their menus because they are proud of the fact that we can say we’re getting this here. That makes the consumer feel good and the restaurant feel trusted.”

Sourcing food in such a way is more expensive - which is reflected in the price of food at restaurants and grocery stories, but proponents say the benefits of taste and health are worth it.

“The hard work spent sourcing allows you to make something so simple and wonderful with that dish. You add the best oil from Italy, a little sea salt from Oregon, a little lemon juice on greens that were picked that morning," Viglietti said. "You don’t need anything else because each leaf in there has a unique and wonderful taste and character. It’s not like gnawing on iceberg, which is like gnawing on water and fat.”

Which begs the question: who's eating it? In short, everyone. Sure, Bernier and Viglietti both noted millennials are taking note of what they eat, but both restaurateurs said people of all ages are coming in for the quality food and great taste.

“What amazes me is the families that come in here with small kids," Bernier said. "They will thank us for opening a place like this where they can bring their kids and feed them healthy food.”

Both restaurateurs said the farm to table movement is growing in popularity as more people begin to care about what they are putting in their bodies.

“It’s about slow, steady demand,” Viglietti said. “It’s daily decisions every day. When I go grocery shopping now, I don’t go to a chain, I go here. Each time you do that, Peter Seely (of Springdale Farm) plants another leaf or another potato and someone in Idaho or California plants that leaf or potato. If you stand at the counter, and one is $1.50 and one is $1.90, you say, okay this one is from 10 miles away and this one is from Chile. I’m going here. Sure it’s a little more, but wow does it taste good.”